by Fay Jacobs
And, I am loathe to admit this, at the end of my lazy journey, I needed the assistance of an 11-year-old Good Samaritan to help get my Orca butt out of the raft. But all’s well that ends well. As for my end, well, my right cheek hurt for days.
But like zip-lining before this, I didn’t exactly enjoy the water slides but I’m glad I did it. Frankly, I’m done proving I can keep up with my mate on these adventures. Next time I will turn the other cheek and cruise along in the BMW.
Wait! Did somebody just mention bumper cars at Funland? Well, maybe just one more adventure. Most of my discs aren’t slipped…yet.
August 2012
SUNSET AT CAMPOBELLO
It was very nearly the perfect vacation. Maine lobsters, stunning Nova Scotia scenery, visiting the charming Prince Edward Island and a plan for our last three days on Campobello Island, off the coasts of Maine and New Brunswick.
Perfect is lovely for a vacation, unless of course, you are a writer with a deadline and perfect is, frankly, not that interesting. Face it, bad reviews are more fun to read than good ones; tragedy and comedy more compelling than, say, 300 pages of nice.
Ergo, I hoped for vacation column fodder. With my spouse driving and me riding shotgun in our behemoth RV with a Jeep hauled behind, me not the most avid camper and my mate not the most sympathetic to my anti-bug, anti-fresh air tendencies, there was great potential. But zilch, nothing. Nada. Oddly, I loved it all. Ah, the smell of Deep Woods Off in the morning.
I even took my paddle-phobic butt kayaking, fearful of capsizing, but half hoping drama would ensue. Hope floated. Nothing.
But just when it was safe to go back in the water, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. We tried to find Campobello Island. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s summer home is now a museum there and I wanted to see it. That, and more stunning shoreline, lighthouses and lobster suppers.
The problem was, the shortest route from Canada was by two ferries, too small to handle our multi-vehicle traveling circus. We’d have to cross back into the U.S., drive another hour and reach the island via Maine’s FDR Bridge. It sounded simple.
Instructing our GPS bitch on the dashboard to head for the FDR bridge, we set out around 6 p.m. However, without consulting us, the bitch determined the shortest route to be ferry to ferry, across the whole stupid island, accessing the bridge bassackwards, from its Campobello side. We’re so used to trusting these electronic babysitters, we didn’t wake up and smell the seagull poop until she had us in line for the first ferry.
“Back up!” shouted the ferry staff, only you can’t back up an RV towing a car unless you enjoy seeing both vehicles in the body shop. Sadly, we know this first hand. So I had to get out, amid a swarm of monster mosquitoes and use tarmac hand signals to guide our personal parade in an ungainly u-turn on a skinny gravel path. Going off road, we trampled several medium sized trees, shot gravel at a dozen cars and lodged a sapling in our windshield wiper.
So now it’s 7:15 and we relaunched for Maine. This time I told GPS smarty pants I was doing the recalculating and sent her to the border as a via point to the bridge.
We made it to customs, where, just as they had done when we entered Canada, the agents spent a lot of time discussing whether the amount of booze we were carrying was over the legal limit. It was a rare instance of wishing I drank more the night before.
Back in the U.S, all was well until we were instructed to veer off in a peculiar direction and dontcha know that bitch managed to lead us to the second ferry we wouldn’t be allowed to board.
Passing a bank parking lot with wide berth for another outsized U-turn, we were fully committed before spying the canopy over the drive-in banking lane. Slamming the brakes caused a ten-wheel squeal, and I got out to check the clearance.
“Abort!”
We would have sheared off the RV roof and dumped it onto the Jeep. It’s rare you get a second chance to destroy your two vehicles at once, but here we were again. I watched as the driver bumped our motorcade up over a steep curb, wobbled it across a stretch of rutted turf, then bounced it back down again. By this time I’d been surrounded by a swarm of black flies and the booze the feds worried about was probably mixed drinks.
Backtracking yet again, our convoy finally got going the right direction but the GPS swore we’d arrive six minutes earlier than the current time on my watch. We were in a time warp, juggling Atlantic and Eastern Standard time zones.
“Recalculating!!” said the GPS.
“Oh, no you don’t!” screamed the driver, unplugging the bitch and flipping her to the back of the bus. “No more of your friggin’ shortcuts!”
We’d been on the road almost four hours for what we thought would be under two. Let’s do the time warp again. We still had an hour or two to go depending whether we believed the arrival estimate had been a U.S. or Canadian calculation.
Driver (trying to turn left, peering past me to see): “Anything coming?”
Me: “Christmas.”
Driver: “Was I supposed to turn there?”
Me: “You know, being lost in an RV is better than being lost in a car. When you refuse to ask the gas station for directions we can just pull over, have nightcap and go to sleep.”
Driver, glaring: “If we get there I’m buying a t-shirt. It will be a collector’s item. Who the hell can find this place?”
Me: “By the time we do, it will be sunrise at Campobello.” (GROAN)
Eventually the elusive bridge appeared. We crossed onto the island and immediately saw flashing lights. Customs, again. We’d crossed from Canada into Maine and now we were going back into New Brunswick, Canada.
Border Patrol: “Any pets with you?”
Me: “Not unless you count the two-pound mosquitoes in here.”
Border Patrol: “Any guns?”
Me: “No, If I’d had one I would have shot myself by now.”
Border Patrol: “How much liquor do you have aboard?”
Me: “Unfortunately, the same amount we had when we left your country several hours ago.”
Luckily I wasn’t taken into custody.
By this time it was either midnight at the oasis or 11 p.m. and we’d flashed our passports, revealed we were unarmed and dogless, and explained our stash of Johnny Walker and Absolut ad nauseam.
But we made it to Campobello. And if GPS girl had not gone rogue, and if we had not gone border hopping and time warping, the vacation would have been utterly perfect. And that would have been too nice for words.
September 2012
HAIR TODAY, GONE BY BRUNCH
The faces on the folks watching the “What’s the Buzz” event at the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center last Sunday morning told the tale. With gritted teeth, apprehensive looks and pretty much abject amazement, they watched my mate Bonnie and four other courageous souls get their heads shaved to raise funds and awareness for Team Ted and the ALS Association.
The team’s Ted is Ted Pokorny and his wonderful wife Jo. They have long supported Rehoboth causes large and small, so when Ted was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease—or ALS—their Rehoboth friends joined the fight.
Bonnie’s mom had succumbed to the horrid illness, and one of our New York writer friends, the brilliant Bob Smith, is courageously fighting it, too. So Bonnie joined the team.
Come Sunday morning at the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center, the participants and peanut gallery gathered for the buzz off. Yes, it was shear madness.
Bryan Hecksher of Auto Gallery was the first to get the buzz, and his new bowling ball hairdo must have suited him, because he suddenly became all show biz, taking charge of the stage and beckoning Bonnie to be next. Up she went, and Bryan himself grabbed the scissors and went to work. Now I knew all her hair was eventually going to go, but it was still a little scary seeing a used car salesman, albeit an incredibly honest one, chopping away at my wife’s locks.
After doing a bit of a comedy routine, Bryan relinquished the shears to a pro who had volunteered her time for
the event. Within minutes, Bonnie’s hairdo was down to a frightening 1980 Mullet. Good God, don’t stop there! Bald is better.
Sure enough, next came the clippers and Bonnie, known for clipping a Schnauzer or two in her day, was getting the same kind of treatment. Canines all over the area could be heard snickering. From the Mullet, the hairdo degenerated into a kind of a Dykes on Bikes cut. Yuk.
The next to last stage was a Mohawk, which was kind of fun, but then it was quickly followed by complete baldness. Then came the ear jokes.
“Wow,” Bonnie said, gazing into the mirror. “From the back I bet I look like a Volkswagen with the doors open.”
“Or Star Trek’s Mr. Spock,” I said. It’s true, the ears stood out like billboards.
Pretty soon it was done. Bonnie’s fear of revealing a lumpy head did not come to pass, and the buzz cut looked great—well, her head was bright white compared to her tanned face, and pretty much looked like it would glow in the dark, but otherwise the close shave looked good on her. Thank goodness she didn’t wind up looking like that 70s detective Kojak.
As Bonnie stepped from the chair, some of my former friends, including my formerly much-loved state representative started chanting, “Fay! Fay! Fay!” I ran outside so quickly I almost landed in the courtyard foliage.
“I’ve never seen her move so fast in her life!” said the Speaker of the House.
I escaped for two reasons. First, this was Bonnie’s gig. (Stop groaning and calling this an excuse!). She deserved the spotlight for her courage and commitment to the cause.
And second, I’m a complete chicken shit. There, I admit it. For me, this was a close shave indeed.
Overall, the willingness of these volunteers to set up the event and get buzzed is marvelous. As for my spouse, I have never been more proud of her. She’s amazing.
Our local paparazzi had a field day snapping pix of Bonnie and the others posing with Ted and Jo, making shocked faces into the flashing cameras and making certain “What’s the Buzz” was a huge success. They raised a lot of money and will continue to raise a lot of awareness and that’s so very important.
As for my girl, I immediately found her some nice laaarge earrings, and ran to the Shirt Factory so they could make her a t-shirt saying “I Shaved My Head for ALS Awareness.”
“Eeew,” she said later, “It’s still a little fuzzy. Here, feel.”
I rubbed her scalp and it did feel a little like the fuzzy side of Velcro. I told her we could just attach the EZ Pass to her head and all she’d have to do at toll booths was lean forward.
Later that night she realized her head was cold and said, “I wish I had an old fashioned night cap to wear to bed.”
I didn’t have to wish. I went right to the bar and made myself one.
September 2012
CHIPS FALLING WHERE THEY MAY
This never would have happened with a roll of film. There would have been no Kodak moment with me crawling on my hands and knees, like a pig sniffing for truffles, hunting for a two gigabyte digital camera chip. No, this crisis is brought to you by Silicon Valley.
Bonnie, Moxie, and I visited friends in Maryland recently, where a new household member, a young Airedale named Benson, had Moxie’s full attention. So enamored was senior citizen Moxie, that he ran alongside Ben, his inner puppy on display, for hours on end in the backyard. This fact is key, it comes up later.
Emmie the Cocker Spaniel joined Benson and Moxie, and photo ops of the bounding pooches abounded.
After taking three cute pictures and viewing them on the camera, I handing off the Sony Cybershot to my pal across the table. She immediately noticed the battery compartment flap open, and an empty slot where the photo chip should have been.
“It was there a minute ago,” I said, “I just took pictures and saw the results.”
Four minds with a single thought: “The chip fell out under the table, don’t let one of the dogs eat it!” As I said, an old fashioned roll of Kodachrome would not have initiated this emergency.
Complete with synchronized groans and unfortunate forehead banging, the four of us dove under the table to search for the errant chip. Nothing. Thinking it might have fallen through the deck onto the gravel patio below, our quartet scurried down the steps to go beachcombing. Lousy on the knees and no success to boot.
Baffled and concerned, we went about our business for the rest of the day, stopping often to wonder exactly where the good chip lollipop had gone.
That night, Emmie suffered a bout of the trots and we were all certain she had ingested two gigabytes of memory and its surrounding plastic, metallic, industrial strength parts. By the next day, a veterinary visit, complete with intestinal x-ray, revealed no foreign bodies in her system and she was diagnosed with garden variety stomach trouble. Perhaps it was too many table scraps, the heat, or the excitement of a new Airedale in the house. But it took $165 at the vet to declare the Maltese Chip’s whereabouts still a mystery.
Meanwhile, back at our ranch, Moxie refused to get out of bed, and when he did, he shuffled like comic Tim Conway’s Mr. Tudball on the old Carol Burnett Show. And if you remember that, you probably once had a chipless Brownie Starflash camera, too.
Poor Moxie. Something seemed really wrong. He had to have swallowed the missing chip. We kept looking for him to produce, um…evidence we could reluctantly examine, but none at all was forthcoming.
In fact, he had not produced any evidentiary material at all in twenty four hours. Naturally, he waited until 3 a.m. the following night to let us know exactly how sick he was. He wouldn’t settle down, and was whimpering in pain. Good thing we now have an emergency vet clinic right up the street. Damn Cybershot. What I wouldn’t give for my Kodak pocket camera with the 110 cartridge. Nobody could have swallowed that hunk of junk.
Examinations and x-rays ensued, as we explained our fear that somewhere in Moxie’s digestive system, there lurked a two gigabyte memory chip recording his stomach contents. The young vet tech looked at me blankly when I joked that this could not have happened if I still used my Instamatic camera with flash cubes.
“Flash cubes?” she said, as if I had mentioned rotary phones or Green Stamps.
No intestinal chip. Moxie, it turns out was seriously constipated, requiring a “procedure.” Four hundred and twenty dollars later, the middle-of-the-night doggie enema complete, the vet had a theory. She believed that elder statesman Moxie romped with his doggie pals so energetically that he was quite the hurting puppy—and bending his knees to “assume the position” in the back yard was too painful for him to bother. So he didn’t. Made sense to me.
As for goodbye mister chip, two weeks later, I was sitting at my desk, when I glanced over at the printer.
There, sticking out of the camera chip slot was, surprise, a camera chip. What the hell? If the chip was there all the time, and never in the camera, how did I take the pictures of the romping canines?
I learned that digital cameras have hard drives and they can take a couple of photos without any memory chip at all. Who knew? So we never had a chip in the camera in the first place, it never fell out, we never had to play Sherlock Holmes, we needn’t have worried about our dogs’ colon health and I feel like a complete chip off the old blockhead.
I want my Brownie Starflash back.
October 2012
THE EYES HAVE IT
As hairdresser Truvy says in Steel Magnolias, “Time marches on, and it’s marching right across my face.”
There’s nothing like reading your medical chart and seeing the words Senile Optical Sclerosis. Good God! Never mind that SOS is just doctor speak for garden variety cataracts. The word senile evokes hysteria in me. This cannot be happening.
My last two months have been completely absorbed with cataract removal, first the right eye, then, four weeks later, the left. Within hours after the first surgery, I could see better than I had in years. I couldn’t believe my eye.
Now, there’s good news and bad news from this easy an
d painless surgery. The good news is that I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. But that’s also the bad news. I looked in the mirror and shrieked. This wasn’t just a new wrinkle, but dozens of them. I looked like a Shar Pei. Frankly, it wasn’t all that bad spending years seeing myself like Doris Day filmed through gauze.
And worse, there on my neck, I spied a thick brown hair lengthy enough to tie in a sailor’s knot. How long had that been there? And it had the gall not to turn grey like the stuff on my head. Irony.
Then came the eye drops. Four kinds, four times a day, although asking me to remember anything four times a day is cruel. I was always forgetting and dropping them in my eyes on my way out the door, so I’d arrive places looking like I was grieving. Only for my lost youth.
Bonnie often helped with the eye drop regimen, which after many weeks got a little old. Sometimes it recalled playwright Neil Simon’s line from Plaza Suite, where E.G. Marshall, getting eye drops, hollered to Maureen Stapleton, “You drop them in, you don’t push them in!” Just kidding. I was the one more likely to stab myself in the eyeball.
Furthermore, the surgery rendered my $600 progressive lens, transition-coated eye glasses completely worthless. Sadder yet, I still need reading glasses and sun glasses but must wait over a month for my new prescription. For now I just juggle drug store readers and those bulky plastic sun glasses that go over the reading glasses. Now I’m Mr. Magoo. And whatever glasses I need are in the other room or the other car or nowhere at all until somebody points out that I have three pairs of ugly spectacles dangling from my shirt collar.
If the eye thing wasn’t annoying enough, since July I’ve had the honor of being my physical therapist’s first Jungle Jim water park injury. I popped a ligament from my hip to my knee squirming out of an inner tube back around July 4th on the Lazy River and walking has caused fireworks ever since.
For pity’s sake, they should just put me up on blocks in the garage. I don’t know whether to shit or go blind but I guess I can decide after my upcoming gastroenterologist appointment and eye doctor follow up.